The desire to change and enhance the apparent color of the eye was recorded by the Egyptians five thousand years ago. Cosmetic makeup for the eye area accounts for the larger percentage of the cosmetic sales today.
Several contact lenses have been produced in an effort to achieve cosmetic eye color change.
One attempt employed a laminated structure with a painted opaque plastic member. The result was a thick heavy lens which was difficult to fabricate and difficult to wear. A later attempt employed a colored opaque plastic porous member surrounding a clear cylinder from which the lens was cut by lathing. This resulted in a lens having a pupil and iris pattern and the porous member had tendencies to flake and chip at the edge. (U.S. Pat. No. 3,454,332-Siegel).
A third generation of colored lenses provided a thin layer of colored opaque markings placed in a clear material. The opaque colored markings radiated from the center of the clear material in a geometric pattern.
U.S. Pat. Nos. Neefe 4,460,523 and 4,472,327 describe methods of making cosmetic contact lenses wherein the lens segments are joined vertically through the lens.